If you meet Tara, one of the first things she usually says is “I’ll get big for gum!” You’ll nod and smile and then look at me and wonder how many Chinese-made lead-coated toys I’ve been feeding this child. I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that Tara can’t wait to grow up. She hears “that’s not for Tara” many times a day. She watches her sister do things she’s not allowed to do, and she can’t wait until she’s old enough to chew gum, use scissors, drive a car, use the computer, take pictures, write with an ink pen, and eat peanut butter. Of course, I don’t ever want her to grow up, but when we do finally let her chew gum, I’m going to have the camcorder out for damn sure.

You’ve probably seen this elf yourself business before, but I contend that Anna and Tara are cuter and more funny than those others.

Last night Jennifer was getting Tara ready for bed, brushing the tangles out of her hair. As the brush hit a snag, Tara yelled out and started crying. I was in another room trying to persuade Anna to get ready, but I distinctly heard Tara wail, “I want my hair cut like Hannah Montana!”

Over the weekend I shot another event. I was there on the coattails of my pro photographer friend, but ended up doing as much shooting as he did; we split quite often to cover as much ground as possible. Much like the event back in July, it was a nonstop crazy flow of activity. I was at the location for two nights but only slept about six hours total. There were models and celebrities and high rollers and executives and it was amazing to even be a part of it.

As a shooting team, my friend and I fit together nicely. He has a terrific ability to with the models and get good images regardless of their level of experience. I focused on environmental shots, candids, and making sure all the clients were happy. I took a lot of pictures in a club during the wee hours of the morning and I think they’re some of the best I’ve ever taken. I’ve finished sorting and I’ve done most of my post processing, but some of the images are so close to perfect that I won’t be able to resist fiddling with them some more.

I’m still digesting all that happened–trying to crystallize all my learnings from the weekend into something I can integrate into my next shoot–but one thing I am sure of is that I want to figure out how to bring more of that passion into my daily life. There is such a thrill to be so focused and driven for an extended period of time, being frantic and exhilarated at once, and being happy with the results as they happen. Then, at the end of the day, you pass out exhausted, sleep like the dead, then spring out of bed and do it again.

This is my second three-day week in a row. Thanksgiving turned out really well what with the food and family and friends and the day off. Tomorrow, I’m going to be in meetings all day long and Friday will be a day off, which I’ll spend driving up to Palm Springs for a two day photo shoot.

Although the blog has been titled “We’re So Tired” from the beginning, I have to admit that there hasn’t been all that much to be tired of lately. Anna has been sleeping very well for quite a while now. Tara has the occasional nightmare, or early morning wakeup, but Anna can often talk her back down. Sometimes I get up early in the morning and hear Tara jabbering to herself, with Anna trying to get her quiet. A couple years ago I seriously thought that I would never see the day when Anna actually wanted to go back to sleep. Last night was an exception, and Jennifer was up with the girls for a few hours. It’s only because the streak has broken that I feel comfortable mentioning it in the blog; ever other time I’ve done so, I’ve totally jinxed myself.

Getting back to Palm Springs, I’ve been wanting to plan a family vacation lately. Every time we take time off, it’s to go visit family. Don’t get me wrong, family is great, but I’d like to have a “just us” vacation for a change. While I’m in Palm Springs, I’m going to make some time to check out some rental houses and condos. Southern California is a really amazing place, and now that the kids are getting older we really should start enjoying more of it. If I can’t find anything good in Palm Springs, I might expand the search to Arizona–maybe Sedona or the Grand Canyon.

I’ve decided to blog for half an hour a week. I’m a very slow writer when I’m trying to be funny, so these posts are going to be short and funny or long and boring. I can tell already this is going to be the long and boring type. Also, there will be no editing after the post, so typos are staying in. I plan to post regularly on Wednesday evening, but this week will be an exception.

I’ve been planning for the last few days for Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll be cooking as usual, with Jennifer’s cousin stopping by for dinner as well as one of my coworkers. In all, I think there will be about eight hours of cooking involved. The menu:

• Turkey (butterflied)
• sage cornbread stuffing with sausage
• garlic mashed potatoes
• sweet potatoes
• corn pudding
• apple crisp

At least half of the cooking I can do Wednesday (which is why I’m blogging on Tuesday). Thursday, there will be a family & friends football game in the morning, so I don’t want to leave it all for Thursday. I don’t have any plans in particular for the weekend, however the next weekend I’ll be going on a multi-day shoot in Palm Springs. It should be pretty darn interesting.

I don’t remember if I blogged at all about the fitness competition I helped shoot a few weeks ago; I had learned quite a bit from shooting the Hooters pageant in Vegas, and applied those learnings to the fitness shoot. One of the things I learned is that I really need f/2.8 lenses to shoot indoor events, but I think that I’ll just have to wait until Canon comes out with the 5D Mark II, and I’ll hope the lower noise will let me shoot saleable photos at ISO 3200.

I’m not exactly sure what to do with this blog. It’s sort of fallen in a state of disrepair, like an old abandoned house. Nobody lives there, I just show up often enough to keep squatters from moving in and turning it into a crackhouse. I really either need to force myself to post something on a regular basis or give it up entirely. Or to use Flickr as my primary posting site, as it’s quicker to take a picture than it is to write 1,000 words. Lately I’ve been making a concerted effort to keep my focus on what I’m doing, and finding that it’s very difficult to do unmedicated, but I know that it helps to limit the number of tasks that I am working on at the same time. One idea I had was to more rigorously schedule some of my activities. Blogging could be something that I could to in a specific 1/2 hr. period each week. It isn’t much, but really, that’s the amount of free time I’m working with these days.

I think morning is the most interesting time of day to watch and listen to the kids. Some days just start out awful, particularly if Anna is in a bad mood, and other mornings everyone’s happy. Jen and I need to be more diligent about getting to bed on time so that we are in a good mood in the morning. I also need to put the camcorder by the bedside so that I can record the girls’ morning routine.

This morning as I got up with the girls, Tara was pretending to be asleep when I came into the room, so that she could spring up and surprise Anna and I. Anna wasn’t fooled. After waking, Tara said, “I was twirling my hair.” She does this a lot, leaving the back of her hair in knots, so we tell her not to do it, but she loves playing with her own or Jennifer’s hair. “Why were you twirling your hair?” I asked. She thought for a second, “Because it calms me down.” Even I was impressed by this little moment of self-awareness. She then made a sour face, turned to Anna and poked her, saying “stupid!” She learned this from listening to Anna’s Junie B. Jones books, and we have been trying to discourage this behavior. “Tara, don’t poke people and don’t say ’stupid.’” She turned to me and asked “What’s the word of the street?” “It’s definitely not ’stupid,’” I replied. She looked down glumly and moped, “Oh.”

Later, at breakfast, I ended up giving the girls each half a cookie because of a slight misunderstanding the previous night. I told Anna she could not have dessert because it is becoming too much of a routine, and instead she could have some for breakfast. I thought it was apple strudel from the german bakery, but it turned out to be cookies. In any case, Tara had to have some as well just to be fair. After Anna wolfed hers down, she asked Tara for some of hers. Tara broke off a piece and gave it to Anna. She then looked at me and said, “I’m sharing with Anna.” Then after a few seconds, “I’m sharing very nicely.” And after a little more thought, “And I won’t say ’stupid.’”

Except for the fact that Anna is still off school, and my office has not reopened, things are mostly back to normal. The air is occasionally clear, depending on which way the wind is blowing. The girls have been mostly indoors all week, but visits from friends have given them some respite from going completely stir crazy.

While things for our family are looking good, so far five families I know have lost their homes. I’m sure I’ll find out more on Monday. Something likes 1200 houses were lost across San Diego, a number that is just absolutely ridiculous the more you think about it. We choose to live here with the fires and mudslides and earthquakes, though. Everyone has to pick their poison.

Every now and then we clear out our old toys and clothes to family, friends, or local people via craigslist. This weekend we’ll take this opportunity to really do a thorough job of paring things down so that we can free up items to donate. Normally we do this on the sly, because as soon as we tell the kids we’re giving away one of their toys, even if they haven’t played with it in years it suddenly become an indispensable favorite. This time, I made a point of telling Anna that we were going to sort through toys to give to kids who have lost their homes, and she was actually excited about it, because she felt genuine sympathy. It’s always refreshing to find out that your child is a good person, even if you knew it before.

Hopefully everything will be getting more back to normal in time for Halloween; a few weeks ago I picked up a smoke machine with the intent of taking some pictures of the kids in their costumes. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to do it this weekend. For now, my computer (which is no slouch) is processing some 1800 photos I took at a fitness event last weekend, and it will be finished in a mere 10 hours! RAW workflow be a harsh mistress.

We are back in our house. There is still an evacuation order for this part of town and the fires certainly continue to rage on, but it is looking like the fire has passed us by. I slept in front of the tv with an alarm to wake me every two hours so I could check for new developments. Today we will focus on getting the kids together with their friends, either indoors or somewhere with clear air. Also, I will work on cleaning up the kids’ play room and moving beds in there since it’s almost a certainty that several of our friends and co-workers have lost their houses.

We left our home yesterday morning after a frantic two hours of packing. We worked hard prepare for a trip that could have been overnight or we might never return to our house again. We kept Anna in the dark about the situation until there was on other option. At this time there is no apparent threat to our house and we are staying with Jennifer’s cousin in a safe part of the city. We feel very lucky to have family here to fall back on because most of our family is back east. The girls are homesick but coping. We’re trying to find indoor activities but many businesses are closed. I have been checking the web and tv nonstop to relieve some of the uncertainty about the situation. I just have to keep remembering that what is most important to me fits in four seats.